Scuba Diving #1

So this summer I decided to get out of my house and tackle the sun and heat and humidity of Abu Dhabi in a kickass way. I enrolled for a scuba diving lesson at a nearby PADI centre and it has been quite some experience. I had to go through some reading material and give some theory tests before entering the swimming pool with my scuba equipment for a couple of confined diving lessons. You are taught some really cool skills like underwater movement, breathing, some emergency skills too. The instructor I have is a South African and he is a very fun loving always laughing kinda guy. 

After two sessions in the pool, we went to the open sea at a site called the Delta Buoy. The boat trip was about half an hour long and the weather was sultry to say the least. I was on empty stomach and felt a bit dizzy. Still I decided to dive at that site and see what happens inside the ocean. I did not want to miss my first dive for whatsoever reason. So I got my gear on and jumped in. The water was warm but visibility was very poor about 4-5 metres at best. The ocean floor was about 9-10 metres deep and once we reached the bottom there was corals and jellyfish galore. We played with a few sea urchins and swam a bit as part of our first dive. I started feeling uneasy again and at the same moment, a friend of mine even got stung by the jellyfish. We surfaced immediately and put some vinegar onto the cut. The pain receded in some time and he was okay. But I was not. The heat and the water got to me and I felt really nauseated and puked a couple of times. The instructor told me it happens with many first timers and I should not be worried about it. He gave me some meds and told me to sleep in the shade in the boat. As a result I could not go for the second dive which was in much calmer, cleaner waters. I will give it another go next week. The good thing is that it happened with me the first day and now I will be prepared for the worst both mentally and physically. 

The excitement is still there and I am itching to get the certification done and do some fun dives all over the world.